


Last Night I Didn't Get To Sleep At All

by orphan_account



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Background Relationships, M/M, Roommates, Sharing a Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-19 23:32:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4765091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snoring, absolutely fuck him and his goddamned snoring...</p>
<p>(Or: Arin and Dan live together and Arin is just about done with his roommate.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Night I Didn't Get To Sleep At All

**Author's Note:**

> This was a prompt from inopinion on tumblr! Disappointingly, I started this a couple days before "NSP in Real Life" came out, or else this might've been very different...
> 
> I might do a sequel one-shot exploring more of the group dynamic and some of the other characters that weren't really focused on if there's enough interest, because I really enjoyed writing in this universe. Let me know what you think!

Snoring, absolutely fuck him and his goddamned snoring. After almost three months of living together, Arin thought he’d have gotten used to it, but a particularly loud snort at one in the morning never failed to wake him. He wasn’t sensitive to raucous partygoers out in the halls during quiet hours, and even the loud-as-fuck fire alarm usually took a minute to rouse him. But any sleep-sound that came from the mouth of Dan Avidan was guaranteed to have him alert in a split second.

And did the subject of all Arin’s frustrations give a single fuck about his insomnia-causing tendencies? Of course not. He stayed out until the early hours of the morning and didn’t bother to be quiet coming home, no matter what time the clock on Arin’s lock screen told him. And it was no rare occurrence for him to bring a girl back to the room, even if his roommate was in the top bunk, trying to get a decent night’s sleep for once in his collegiate life. He wasn’t quite sure how Dan kept finding girls willing to fuck him in a bottom bunk, but it was enough for Arin to get accustomed to the sound of moans, of skin on skin that always managed to find its way through his earbuds, and the swaying and creaking of the bed beneath him. The first few times he’d woken up embarrassingly hard, but as the semester trudged on and the headphones he used became increasingly sound-proof, he found himself numb to it.

As for the daytime antics, they were surprisingly few and far between. Once or twice Arin had come back from his morning classes to find a girl still in the room, getting dressed, usually with an upset or irritated expression on her face. He would mutter an awkward apology and duck out, hiding in the bathroom until he was sure she had left. None of them ever made an attempt to speak to him, and he reciprocated in kind. Any girl that willingly interacted with _him_ was not someone he wanted to let into his life. It had bene a struggle for him to even convince himself that going to college was even worth it in the first place. What would four years of animation classes teach him that he couldn’t teach himself, minus thousands of dollars? Not to mention having to deal with things like Leigh Daniel Avidan constantly filling a space that was meant to be a sanctuary with noise.

In a way, he supposed, he was being a bit of a hypocrite. Around his small group of friends, he was loud to the point of being obnoxious, and had earned more than his fair share of angry side-eyeing at the student union. But something about his godforsaken roommate seemed to turn off his vocal chords. And except for the occasional bit of dirty talk (which he shuddered to think about, and tried to tune out) he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard him talk either. Nor had he ever responded to Arin’s multiple Facebook messages when they were first assigned to room together. For all he cared, Arin might as well have not existed.

Dan did have at least one friend, though (besides his many one-night companions) with whom he presumably had actual vocal conversations. A short—at least, compared to the six-foot-two giant he shared his space with—guy in the school of physics (according to his t-shirt, at least) with a death glare to rival Dan’s, who had once shown up at Arin’s door looking for him. The look that crossed his face when Arin said _he’s not here, he hardly ever is, he only shows up at night_ could only be described as pure, unadulterated glee. “I see,” he’d said, expression now perfectly composed except for a hint of mirth in his blue eyes. “Tell him Brian stopped by, will you?”

He walked away without another word, and down the hallway met up with a girl with silvery hair who craned her neck to eye him curiously before they entered the stairwell. Later that night, when the lower bunk was shaking beneath him, he thought about telling Dan, and almost immediately decided against it. He didn’t want to wrap himself up in…whatever the hell _that_ was.

Still…they had to talk sometime. Right?

~oOo~

“Have you tried just talking to him about it?” Ross inquired for roughly the fiftieth time as they walked slowly back to the dorm after Intro to 2D Animation. Since they shared a major, he and Arin had almost identical schedules, and lived in the same building by happenstance. He was one of Arin’s few friends on campus, along with his roommates Barry and Kevin. Arin often envied the fact that they’d been able to snag a three-person suite with separate bedrooms. Maybe if he and Dan weren’t sleeping just feet away from each other, they wouldn’t have so many issues.

“Of course I fucking have, Ross!” Arin exclaimed, not bothering to hide the irritation in his voice. “First he just ignored me. Now I’m pretty sure he’s going out of his way to avoid me. The only times I’ve ever heard him say anything are when he’s banging girls.”

Ross did a double-take, which under any other circumstances would have been hilarious. Now, though, it just made Arin want to take a scalding hot shower to erase the images from his mind. “Wait, he does that when you’re in the room?”

“He doesn’t give two shits whether I’m in the room. Probably does it when I’m not there too.” He swiped his key fob to get into the stairwell perhaps a little more forcefully than he needed to. After that, the trek to the fourth floor was long and silent. The last flight of stairs he climbed alone, after Ross left for his third floor room. Even though he would never admit it, Arin was actually looking forward to his time alone, a much-needed reprieve to hash things out in his head. Maybe he could even finally figure out what he wanted to say to Dan, if he could even work up the courage to speak to him.

Except when he opened the door to room 455, Arin was most definitely not alone.

It wasn’t Dan sitting at the desk—at this time of day, it never was. Instead a tiny blonde girl, hair swept up in a messy bun, was perched next to his laptop, flipping through one of his books. She glanced up when he closed the door, and her grey eyes narrowed. She shut the book with an audible snap and stood. Much shorter than Arin anticipated, but she cut an intimidating figure nonetheless.

“You do exist,” she said accusingly, pointing at him with one slim finger, tipped ballet-slipper pink. He felt small under her gaze, stripped bare and crushed by the weight of her stare. “Here Danny was telling me he didn’t have a roommate. I knew he was lying, since I saw you that one time, but of course I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. And I was right!” The thin point of her fingernail left its place aiming at his chest, and she worried her full bottom lip between her teeth. “Brian owes me twenty bucks. He thought Dan was making the whole thing up.”

The named flicked a switch in his mind, and he remembered another set of pale eyes. “But he’s seen me before,” he ground out, voice hoarse with surprise. “Brian, I mean.”

“And he talks, too!” The sarcasm in her voice could probably kill a man. “Well then, I suppose Brian just really wanted to give me twenty dollars. Now.” She took a few steps towards him and even though she barely came up to his shoulder, he could feel himself tensing, frightened by the force behind her tone. “I can see why he didn’t want to tell us about you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Who even are you?” He regretted asking the second he finished the question, as soon as a wicked smirk tugged at the corners of her mouth. (She was, he imagined, exactly what Dan would be like if he ever deigned to speak to him.)

“Don’t you recognize me?” At his blank stare she flashed another smirk and added “Would it help if I did this?”

And she threw back her head and let out an obscenely loud moan. Blood rushed to his face and he clenched his fists to keep them from shaking, because he definitely knew her now. Dan rarely had the same girl over twice, but this one made almost weekly appearances at his accidental shows.

“Oh,” she said, grinning. He tried to ignoring the light pink tinging her own cheeks. “You know that sound. I’m guessing we fucked up your sleep schedule more than once. I’d apologize, but I’m not really sorry. He definitely knows what he’s doing.”

He nodded, clearing his throat in an attempt to ward off the awkward silence and draw attention away from his beet-red face. “I still have no idea who you are, though.” His voice was unsteady. For some reason, the thought of this porcelain doll of a girl in his roommate’s bed set him on edge, especially now that they were face-to-face in broad daylight, without Dan around.

“Well, my name is Alicen, but only one person is allowed to call me that, and it’s not you. To you I’m just Aly, or Lane if you don’t like that. And before you ask, it’s not my last name.” She stepped back, allowing him out of the alcove that housed the closets and bathroom door and into the room proper. While he busied himself unpacking his bookbag, she laid across the bottom bunk, seeming to Arin entirely too familiar and comfortable there. If he thought about it (not that he wanted to) he could picture her under him, skin exposed, her hair fanned out over the pillows as he made the bed shake, and the dream-Arin above them clenched his hands over his ears, trying not to listen.

He looked over at her, back in the present, his face surely still red. She was grinning at him again in that infuriating way, hiding her teeth with a smirk. “Any particular reason you’re the one talking to me and not him?” he asked, not covering the sarcasm in his voice.

“Because he’s being stubborn,” she replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “He doesn’t even want to admit it to himself, let alone any of the rest of us. But Brian and I, we know better than that. We see straight through his bullshit.”

Arin paused his haphazard book-shelving to give her a blank stare. “I still have no idea what you’re talking about.” He could tell he wasn’t going to get anywhere with her. They couldn’t even read the same book, let alone be on the same page. And the way she kept dancing around what she wanted to say, more for her amusement than his benefit… “Look, not to be rude—although _you’re_ the one who barged into my room—but either shoot straight or leave.”

She sat up, seemingly paying attention now, as she gripped the bottom of the bed above her. Her marled grey sweater had slipped off one shoulder, revealing the top of a tattoo. “If you want straight shooting, I’m not the person you want to talk to. I’ll keep you here for guessing for hours on end and enjoy every second of it. But I suppose if you really want to know….” She trailed off, ending with a sigh. It was obvious to Arin that she was the type of person to get off on fucking with people. “Have you been upstairs?” she asked, pointing at the ceiling. “The fifth floor?”

“Yeah,” he said, confused. “I have a couple friends that live up there.” That was a lie, but she didn’t need to know that.

“You know where 537 is?”

He nodded, still unsure of where this was going. It wasn’t actually that far from where Ross’s suite was on the third floor; since they all had the same floor plan, he was sure he could find it.

“Come there tonight and I’ll introduce you to my straight-shooter guy. I’ll make sure he lets you in.” She stood up, brushing imaginary dirt off her ripped jeans, just as her phone, sitting on Dan’s desk, rang loudly. An instrumental version of “The Rains of Castamere” played for about two seconds before she scooped it up and hit accept, holding the phone to her ear with a wicked grin. “Why hellooooo, Daniel,” she sang.

Arin froze in place, his hand tight around his Intro to Psychology textbook, as Alicen pressed her lips together, still smiling. “I may or may not be in possession of your key.”

Very faintly, from the speaker pressed against her pierced ear, Arin thought he heard swearing. It must be Dan, he realized, because why would anyone else named Daniel be so angry at her about a missing key? It was the first time he’d actually heard his roommate speak, outside of all the sex he really wished he hadn’t been there for, and the revelation startled him. He kind of wanted to know what he sounded like speaking normally, holding a conversation instead of just giving Arin pointed glares on the rare occasion they were in the room together during the day.

“Don’t worry about it, you baby,” she said, interrupting his train of thought. He’d almost forgotten she was there. “I’ll leave them here. Arin will leave the door unlocked.” The stare she leveled at him as she fished Dan’s keys out of her pocket and dropped them on his desk could probably evaporate water in seconds. _537_ , she mouthed at him as she turned to leave. “Yes you are, Dan. You’re a sexy widdle baby.”

Arin watched in shock until the door clicked shut behind her, leaving him alone with Dan’s keys on the desk. His hand twitched towards his phone, thinking of calling Ross, or maybe Barry, who was more likely to listen without interrupting every five seconds. But when he thought about what she’d said, he was overwhelmed with curiosity. Maybe, he thought, running his fingers through his hair, he would go to 537 tonight, just to see what she was talking about.

The door flung open and Arin practically jumped, dropping his Psych book on the carpet. His roommate blew through like a hurricane, grabbing his keys off the desk with long-fingered hands, barley even glancing at Arin before he left. Not even the customary withering glare. In fact, it almost seemed like he was trying to _avoid_ looking at him…

In his mind, that all but settled it. Taking an invitation from a stranger was probably a horrible idea, but he’d finally hit the end of his rope. It was either this or request a room change, and get Dan to agree to it. In his mind, he had no other choice.

~oOo~

Unsurprisingly, room 537 ended up belonging to one Brian Wecht, who was apparently an RA (the only way anyone who wasn’t a freshman could be living in this hall). His door was absolutely covered in signs from previous years, one of those “where’s the RA?” things with the pin affixed next to “in room,” and a whiteboard that read, among other things, _Alicen practically lives here._ Arin’s attention, however, was drawn to the picture above the whiteboard. He recognized Brian immediately, glaring stone-faced at the camera, next to a dark-haired girl he assumed was Alicen pre-hair-dye. And next to her, one arm casually draped over her shoulder and the other pushing back a mess of unruly hair, was Dan.

Arin couldn’t help but stare. He’d never seen his roommate look so…to put it bluntly, happy. Smiling, teeth and all, with a girl tucked against his side instead of under him in his bed. It took him aback, but it also made him think. If he could act like this around other people—people who were clearly willing to help his cause—then maybe there was some hope after all.

He was in the middle of raising his fist to knock on the door when he heard a voice and stopped, hand hovering unsteadily in midair. “Goddamn, Brian.” Definitely Alicen. After what had happened in his room, he would recognize that voice anywhere. “Could you maybe pick a less comfortable position to sleep in? This whole ‘neck at a ninety-degree angle’ thing is just not fucking cutting it for me.”

“No one said you were staying over,” someone else—presumably Brian—replied. It sounded like there were only the two of them, which was good for him. He wasn’t sure if he would’ve been able to force out a single word if Dan was around. His resolve steeled by the absence of his roommate, Arin raised his hand again and rapped his knuckles on the door.

Inside, the room fell silent. He only had a moment to wonder whether or not he’d made the right decision when the door opened. In front of him stood a mildly annoyed Brian. “Yes?” he asked, the single syllable short and clipped.

“Um.” Now that he was actually faced with the situation, he had no idea what to say. “I’m Arin? I was told to come here. Alicen sent me?”

“Don’t call me that,” her voice chimed from inside the room. “Let him in, Brian. That’s Dan’s roommate.”

“I know who it is.” Brian stepped back from the door, shutting it after Arin walked past. “We’ve met.”

The room was sparsely furnished compared to Arin’s, since an RA living alone only needed one of everything. One bed shoved in to the back corner, with a desk pushed up against the end. Across from that, a dresser, sitting next to a keyboard, and a futon beside that. The walls were bare except for a few photographs, and only one of the closets had a curtain hanging over it. Even though it was, technically, the same size as every other room, it felt massive to Arin.

Alicen was perched on the bed, her hair loose around her shoulders. She had swapped her jeans out for yoga shorts and dramatic winged eyeliner for heavy black glasses resting on her thin face. Brian took a seat on the bed next to her and she casually draped her legs over his, laying back and staring at the ceiling. It was something he’d never quite understood, being able to just touch a person in passing (he’d always needed his space) and it made him wonder exactly what their relationship was.

“So.” She looked over at him, hair fanned across the pillows. Brian ran his fingers across her legs idly, but his gaze was fixed on Arin. “Have you figured it out?”

More of the bullshit. He assumed Brian was the straight-shooter, because there was no way she would get to the point in the next century without an intervention. “I don’t think there’s anything to figure out,” he replied carefully, watching their faces for a sign that he might be saying the wrong thing. “He just hates me, I guess. I’ve tried talking to him and he doesn’t respond. That’s all there is to it.”

“On the contrary.” The smirk was back, which could not possibly bode well. She motioned for Arin to take a seat on the futon, which he did, albeit nervously and a little reluctantly. He sent a mildly pleading glance to Brian, who actually seemed to be enjoying this. There’s no way they weren’t…involved somehow, he thought, because though they seemed like polar opposites it was clear they were on the same page. He wondered if Brian knew she was fucking Dan on an almost-weekly basis. “You’ve got a lot left to figure out.”

“What more could there possibly be?” Arin scoffed. He wasn’t going to sit there and pretend he was happy with all this. Given the choice, he would almost rather silently put up with his roommate’s bullshit for the rest of the year. Then maybe he and Ross and Barry and Kevin could get a four-person suite and he wouldn’t have to worry about sharing his space with the world’s most obnoxious person. (Well…there was Ross, but at least he wouldn’t bring a girl home every other day.) At this point, maybe it was better to just remain silent.

Alicen sighed loudly and turned to face the ceiling again, almost as if she didn’t want to look at him. “Listen. Dan and I have a long history. Most of it of a romantic nature.” This Arin wasn’t surprised to hear, but he did take note of the way Brian’s hand tensed on her leg, and he was sure she felt it too. She struck him as a lot of things, and _unobservant_ was nowhere on that list—the exact opposite, in fact. “And anyone who can make Leigh Daniel ‘Straighter than a Straight Machine’ Avidan question his sexuality is—”

“Wait. What?” It took Arin a moment to realize he was shaking his head. “That’s literally impossible. He fucks a different girl every day.” _And you every week_ , he thought, but he didn’t dare say it in front of Brian’s death glare. He of all people would be the first to know if his roommate was gay for him…right?

“When did he start bringing girls home?” Brian asked pointedly. The question caught him off guard, and he forced himself to actually stop and think about it.

“A couple weeks into the semester,” he finally answered after about a minute of awkward silence, during which Brian had very visibly relaxed and resumed running his fingers over the skin of Aly’s calf. “But I don’t see what that has to do with any—”

It only took the raise of Aly’s dark eyebrow for everything to fall into place. Two weeks. Enough time for Dan to have potentially realized he had feelings for Arin and immediately rebel against them. It was a convincing thought pattern, that he couldn’t deny, but it was a far cry from evidence.

“Well, it still doesn’t prove anything,” he insisted, felling like a child under her gaze. She was sure she was right and the confidence bled out of her onto Brian’s quilt, permeated the air until Arin felt like he was choking on it. And what if she _was_ right? How could he possibly make it through the rest of the year knowing his roommate wanted to bang him? He would have to request a room change; he wouldn’t be able to deal with it. The more he thought about it, the more he realized he was actually beginning to believe it himself. The two of them made a very convincing pair, a sort of good-cop bad-cop approach to making him believe what they wanted. And it was sure as hell working. Maybe he could confront Dan, he thought, corner him and demand to know what the fuck his deal was. He could almost trick himself into thinking it would work…

Just like that, his train of thought was interrupted by ‘The Rains of Castamere’ yet again. Aly sat up quickly, crossing her legs, and answered the phone with a leisurely “hello?”

There was a moment of silence as she listened to whoever was on the other end of the line, and then a horrified expression crossed her face. “Don’t. You can’t come over here right now, Dan.”

Dan. Arin froze, still perched uncomfortably on the futon, his heart racing a million miles an hour. His roommate couldn’t’ know he was here, talking to his friends. It would be the final nail in Arin’s coffin, so to speak, an excuse for him to request a room change, which Arin was not entirely sure he wanted anymore, not since the idea of trying to talk to Dan entered his mind. But any plan he had would never work if Dan found him here. He would be too angry to listen to anything Arin tried to say. He could feel his pulse trying to hammer its way out of his chest.

“Because…um…Brian and I are fucking.” The man in question scoffed and rolled his eyes, giving Arin a look that seemed to say _can you believe what I have to put up with?_ “Or we were, until you so rudely interrupted us.”

Another pause. She drummed her fingers on the nightstand anxiously, her pink nails making little clicking sounds. “There is literally no reason not to believe me. We have been madly in love for years.” Brian’s stare was incredulous, and directed at her now, but she ignored him completely, biting her plush bottom lip. “Look, Dan, I don’t have a good answer for that, okay? Just don’t come in here.” Arin could hear the tension in her voice, and see it in her muscles, body coiled like a spring. “Please.”

But it wasn’t enough. The unlocked door swung open and in the little hallway stood Dan Avidan. He stopped midstride when he saw his roommate on the futon, and a million emotions flashed across his face, incredulity and anger and realization, all in the space of a few seconds.

“What the fuck?” he asked quietly, fist tensed in the sleeves of his leather jacket. Aly at least had the good graces to look guilty, though she kept her gaze on him despite her messy hair, the sweater dipped low on her arm, exposing part of her bra. (If she was trying to play the ‘I-was-in-the-middle-of-sex’ card, though it was useless now, she was doing it well.) Brian’s facial expression didn’t change, but he moved his hand over Aly’s bare leg protectively, as if that would help anything. Dan zeroed in on it immediately, and the beginnings of a smirk crossed his face. But his furious mirth only lasted a second, and he looked to Arin again. When he did, his face was closed off and devoid of emotion.

“It’s not what you think.” Her voice was soft. It was the first completely serious thing he’d ever heard her say, and her eyes were earnest, her bottom lip worried between her teeth. He didn’t seem as angry when he looked at her, but the rage was still there, still prevalent, especially when his gaze returned to the hand on her thigh. “I swear to God, Dan, it isn’t—”

“Shut up.” His voice was deeper than Arin anticipated, contorted with anger. It was obvious, too, in the set of his lips, his narrowed dark eyes. He looked away and Brian met the glare head-on with one of his own, more protective than angry. It only took a second for Dan to relent and direct his anger back at Arin. Before he knew what was happening he was being hauled to his feet, his arm in the tight grip of his roommate’s thin fingers. Dan shoved him out unceremoniously, not even bothering to glare at him again before the door was slammed in his face.

For a moment he just stood there, staring blankly at the picture on the door—probably the only way he’d ever be able to see him smile. Then he turned and began the slow trek back to the room, thinking of the finger-shaped bruises he was sure to have on his arm come tomorrow morning.

~oOo~

The sex was angry that night. Arin honestly shouldn’t have been surprised that he would bring a girl back after the huge fight he’d surely had with Aly and Brian. But when he recognized the moan as one he’d heard just a few hours ago, he almost sat straight up in his bunk to see if it was actually her. They hadn’t made it to the bed yet—the second the door shut he’d pinned her against the wall, her lithe legs wrapped around his waist as he kissed down her neck. Luckily, Arin didn’t have a clear view of them, which was the last thing he wanted. He could see the tops of their heads, though, his dark and hers light, their hair forming a messy curtain around them as they kissed.

He felt a sudden pang of jealousy at the sight, at the thought that a girl he was angry with could still be invited to his bed just a few hours later, yet he’d never even said a full sentence to Arin, whom he seemed to be chronically mad at. Trying to keep silent, he rolled over so he couldn’t see them and put his headphones in, hoping they’d think he was asleep. He could drown out the moans with music but he couldn’t stop the shaking of the bed, making him nauseous and angry and _jealous,_ so fucking jealous that it made his chest tight with envy.

A minute or two after the bed frame stilled, he took his earbuds out cautiously. He could picture it all too clearly in his mind—Dan laying on his back, thin chest covered in a sheen of sweat, and Aly lying next to him, planting lazy kisses on his shoulder. They didn’t talk to each other. They never did. Some of the other girls attempted to engage him in conversation post-sex, but he never responded. With her, the silence was always mutual—or, at least, he thought.

“Alicen?” Dan asked, his voice hoarse, and Arin could feel him shifting on the mattress underneath him.

“Don’t call me that,” she murmured back, half-asleep but still alert enough to make her tone sharp. “You can’t call me that.”

“Why? Because only Brian can?”

Silence. The bed beneath him was still. “You know that’s not fair,” she finally replied. “It’s never been like that.”

“I don’t believe you. Why should I believe anything you say?” Arin’s eyes widened in the darkness. Was he the cause of all this? Guilt constricted his chest, squeezing his heart in a vise grip. He hadn’t meant to fuck up anyone’s life. All he wanted was to put in his four years, get his animation degree, and get the fuck out of his hometown. A surly roommate who may or may not have been sexually attracted to him was not part of the plan, yet here he was, tearing a friendship apart.

“I didn’t want to lie to you.” For the first time since he’d met her, she sounded…afraid. To be fair, Arin had only known her for maybe twelve hours, but he got the impression she didn’t let her mask of bravado down easily.

“But you did.”

“Because I knew how you would react!” She was obviously trying to be quiet because of the time, but she was practically whisper-shouting at this point. Outside, sirens started up, and after a few seconds the lights of a police car driving past lit up the window. It was still for a moment and then she continued, quieter this time. “I knew you would get angry at me for interfering. But I couldn’t stand to see you so upset anymore, Dan. I just couldn’t fucking stand it.”

“Well, congratulations,” he snapped, his voice a sharp whisper. “You’ve made it worse than if you’d never gotten involved at all.”

There was a lot of rustling underneath him, and he pictured Dan turning away, nose practically pressed against the drywall because there wouldn’t be room in the bed otherwise. A final creak of bedsprings later all was quiet, except for a faint rustling nothing like the one he’d heard before. Aly getting dressed, probably. There was no way she’d stay after what he said, he’d wounded her pride too much. Arin could see the dim shape of her in the near-darkness, and when a car drove by and illuminated the room, he saw the tear tracks on her cheeks. She slipped out, quiet as a mouse, and let the door click shut behind her.

And a loud groan came from below him. It was the loudest sound he’d ever heard Dan make. The bed frame was shaking too, and he wondered exactly what he was doing. Punching a pillow, a mattress, the wall—the sound was unmistakable. And—he almost couldn’t believe his own ears—was he…crying?

“Dan?” It slipped out of his mouth before he could stop it. Under him, the bed abruptly stilled, though he could still hear his roommate’s ragged breathing. “Are you okay?”

He received no response. To be honest, he hadn’t really expected one. If Dan had tried to speak to him normally he would have been stunned into silence too. Arin rolled over so he was facing the ceiling, willing himself not to try and look at the bed below him. After a few moments of tense, uncomfortable silence, he did hear a noise—but it wasn’t a reply from Dan. Just more of his loud goddamned snoring.

~oOo~

Arin waited three days to confront him. During that time they were never in the room together during the day, and Arin made a point of sleeping at Ross’s place, crashing on the futon in the common space of his suite. The first night he stayed there, he was forced to explain to them, and was subsequently shocked when Barry interrupted his story halfway through, eyes wide, with “You didn’t tell me your roommate was Dan _Avidan_! What the fuck, Arin?”

“…wait. What?”

“Have you seen Aly or Brian?” It was a little unnerving, the fact that Barry seemed to know more about his roommate than Arin himself. For what it was worth, though, Ross and Kevin looked just as confused as he did.

“Well…yeah. You didn’t let me get to that part. How do you even know them?”

“We all went to the same high school.” Arin was sure his face had transformed into a mask of incredulity. “There was never a time those three weren’t together. They graduated together, too, just Aly and Dan took a gap year before they came here.”

“That would explain why he’s in the all-freshman dorm,” he commented before continuing his story. By the time he reached Dan and Aly’s little bedroom disagreement, Barry’s mouth was wide open, and Kevin looked both disgusted and entertained. Ross, though, was apparently only interested in one part of the story.

“So, wait. You were just in the room while they were having sex? And they didn’t even care?”

“Ross!”

“Hang on, Barry, this is important. So were you?”

Arin sighed in exasperation, running a hand through his hair. He could vaguely remember having this exact conversation before, though with Ross’s memory he wasn’t surprised it had slipped his mind. “I mean, yeah, but it wasn’t by choice. He didn’t exactly ask my permission. He hasn’t the entire time we’ve lived together. Have you not been hearing me complain about it nonstop for the past three months?”

“No, I have,” Ross countered quickly, almost defensively. Arin didn’t believe him. “I just didn’t realize it was that bad.”

“Well, it is.” He leaned forward so he was practically doubled over, head in his hands. “I’m thinking about requesting a room change,” he admitted, his voice muffled by skin and carpet. “They can’t possibly be serious about this whole Dan-wanting-to-bang-me thing, right?”

“I don’t think they’re joking,” Barry said slowly. “I didn’t exactly hang out with them in high school because of the age gap and all, but I knew them enough to know they were never apart. At least two of them were always together, if not all three. They know everything about each other, and I mean _everything_.” Arin shifted uncomfortably, recalling all the times Aly had spent the night in his room. He flashed back to Brian’s hand on her leg and wondered if they were involved like that too. “If Aly and Brian say he wants to bang you, he definitely wants to bang you.”

So there was no way around the confrontation, he thought a couple days later as he stood in front of his desk with shaking hands. If this wasn’t a joke, then he needed to talk to him. The curiosity would probably kill him otherwise. So there he was, clenching his trembling fingers into fists as the door swung open.

Dan swept past him without a second glance, depositing onto his desk a messenger bag which he began to unpack methodically, placing books on the shelves with a precision Arin didn’t realize he had. He kept waiting for his roommate to look up and see him. His lip would curl into a sneer and he’d try to leave—but Arin would stop him. Finally, _finally_ , he would lock eyes with him, and demand to know why he’d been doing everything in his power to make him miserable for the past three months.

The slam of one of Dan’s desk drawers snapped him back to reality, and he looked over to see him lifting the bag over his shoulder, putting his earbuds back in with slim fingers. Panic welled up in his chest. He couldn’t let him leave, not now when he’d finally gotten up the courage to do this. Quicker than he knew he could move, Arin was in front of the door, pressing his hand into the knob to lock it—not that it would do much to stop him from getting out, since it locked from the inside. Still, it was better than nothing.

He turned around and there he was, towering over him even though they were the same height. “Excuse me,” he said, his voice smooth and controlled and emotionally empty. He tried to reach past him, but, surprising even himself, Arin’s hand shot forward and gripped Dan’s thin, bony wrist tightly, preventing him from turning the knob. His roommate’s dark eyes rose from his wrist to meet Arin’s, and he felt like he was drowning in that gaze.

“No,” he responded, only the slightest tremor in his deep voice. One of Dan’s eyebrows raised, showcasing a scar he didn’t realize was there, and he pressed his lips together into the thinnest of lines.

“Excuse me,” he repeated, more insistent than before. This time Arin countered with “I don’t think so” and physically pressing his body against the door. He didn’t think it would work, but Dan actually backed down, slouching a little as if to show he wouldn’t try anything. After a moment of tense silence in which they stared each other down, Arin released his wrist. Dan stepped back slowly, and Arin couldn’t help but notice that his roommate fit his own fingers over his wrist in the exact place Arin’s had been.

“We need to talk.” Now his voice was definitely shaking, but either Dan didn’t notice or was kind enough to ignore it. Instead he pulled out Arin’s desk chair and sat straddling it, chin resting on the back.

“So talk,” he said, dropping his bag on the floor. He looked up at Arin with eyes that were attentive, if a bit suspicious, and Arin was shocked.

“I didn’t think it would be that easy,” he admitted, hand on the back of his head, and Dan laughed and it was musical. For a minute Arin couldn’t remember what he was going to say, and nervousness clouded his thoughts. What if he felt the same way about Dan that Dan supposedly did about him?

“Hey,” His eyes snapped back up to Dan’s. “Are you okay?”

He drew an unsteady breath. “Yeah. I just don’t know how to do this.” A nervous laugh escaped his mouth, and it was nails on a chalkboard compared to Dan’s. He bit his lip in nervousness, trying to word things carefully so he wouldn’t make him mad. “I talked to your friends the other day. You already know that.”

“What, Aly and Brian?” Arin nodded, surprised that he wasn’t upset about him bringing it up. “I mean, I was upset when I first found out, but as Aly told me in no uncertain terms the next day, they both can do what they want. I had no right to be upset with them, or you for that matter. Sorry about that.” He shrugged his bony shoulders, actually having the decency to look a little guilty. Arin couldn’t believe it, despite seeing it with his own eyes, hearing it with his own ears. Dan Avidan, actually speaking to him? Apologizing for one of the many shitty things he’d done over the past three months? It wasn’t exactly going to fix everything, but it was a much better start than he anticipated.

“That’s…really nice of you,” Arin said, still practically stunned into silence. “But I was kind of hoping we could talk about some of the things they told me before you showed up.”

“Oh?” The remnants of the grin faded from his face and now he looked serious and—unless Arin’s eyes were playing tricks on him—a little anxious. He sat up straight and leaned forward a little, arms crossed and resting on the back of the chair. “And what were the things they told you?”

He was wading into shark-infested waters now, and Arin knew it. One wrong word could set Dan off, could ruin the calm tone of the conversation and make him angry. And if he got mad enough to leave, he would probably never come back. One of them would get a room change and that would be the end of it. He had to tiptoe around it if he wanted Dan to stay.

“They were telling me,” he began, stomach roiling, watching the emotions rise in his eyes with every word, “about the reason you’ve been ignoring me for the past three months.”

His hands were clenched into fists now, feet planted firmly next to the chair, and he looked like he was about to get up and leave. “What did they say was the reason?” he asked, his voice death-quiet, and Arin got the feeling he wasn’t actually looking for an answer so much as an excuse to leave. He went over every word in his mind two, three times before he said them aloud, shoving his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants to hide their trembling.

“They said…that it was because you were…interested in me.”

The air left his tight-pressed lips in a huff, and he stood up, swinging his long legs over the chair. He tried to lean against the wall and look nonchalant but Arin could see then tension in his shoulders, the long lines of his torso hidden under his leather jacket. “In what way?” His hands were shaking too, but he didn’t try to hide it, like he wanted Arin to see his anger.

“Are you going to start yelling if I tell you?” Arin asked, raising an eyebrow. He wasn’t sure how he’d suddenly become imbued with Alicen’s sarcastic bravado, and he didn’t think it was the best idea, but Dan (who, he remembered, was far too familiar with such an attitude) seemed to be taking it in stride, and responding to it. Arin noticed a significant decrease in the movement of his bony hands.

“Yelling? Of course not.” He rolled his eyes. Looking back, Arin realized he should’ve paid more attention to Dan’s careful wording, and thought about what that relatively empty promise meant. At the time, though, his only thought was _spit it out. Like pulling off a Band-Aid._

“It seemed like they meant…in a sexual way.”

Unobservant as he was, Arin didn’t anticipate the fist in his face until it was already there, crunching against him, and he wasn’t sure if it was his nose or Dan’s knuckles making that god-awful sound. He felt the rust of blood on his lips and his hand shot to his face, feeling for breaks. Lucky for him, there weren’t any, at least not physically, but something snapped in his mind and his whole body began to shake. In front of him Dan was staring at his still-clenched fist, bloody knuckles, as he lowered it slowly to his side.

“Don’t fucking say that again,” he spat through clenched teeth. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to leave right now and request a room change, preferably to another building. As soon as they grant it I’m going to move out. We’ll never see each other again, and you’re _not_ going to contact any of my friends.”

Arin kept his mouth shut on all the reasons his plan was horrible. The university might not grant his request. There were no rooms open in the building he wanted to move into (presumably the one where Alicen lived, if she wasn’t already here). He could end up with an even worse roommate. Arin didn’t want him to leave.

The last one slammed into him like a train, running him over without leaving room to breathe. He didn’t want Dan to switch rooms. As odd as it sounded, even to Arin himself, he would miss his snoring, his glares, the way it seemed to take a tremendous amount of effort for him not to look at Arin. And Arin couldn’t keep his eyes (or mind) off him either. So he leaned forward and did the only thing he could think to do that would stop him from leaving.

He kissed him.

His eyes were still open and he could see Dan’s wide and brown and barely even an inch from him. Dan had chapped lips and a few days’ worth of five o’clock shadow and he was heaven to Arin, who gripped his stubbly face in his hands and held on for dear life. On his chest he could feel thin fingers trying to push him away, but it was to no avail, and after a minute he gave up. Those fingers curled into Arin’s chest instead, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt and pulling him impossibly closer. Their needy lips were pressing together so hard that when Dan pulled back an inch to whisper “How’d you know they weren’t lying?” his mouth was red and kiss-swollen and it sent sparks through Arin.

“I heard you that night,” he gasped, only dimly aware that Dan was turning them so that Arin was he one pressed against the wall and that every bit of his body was matched to Dan’s, inch for inch. “With Aly. The rest I figured out on my own.”

“Fuck,” Dan breathed out, pushing against him. Arin’s fingers dug into his bony hips, urging him on. “I forgot about that. Were you awake the whole time?”

“Hard to get any sleep when you keep shaking the bed like that.” He would’ve regretted his words if not for the look on Dan’s face right before he dipped his head down, putting those sinful lips on his neck and Arin lost his train of thought.

“I think,” Dan said hoarsely before he bit down, eliciting a cry from Arin, “that you’ve been spending far too much time in the top bunk.”

~oOo~

“I don’t want to tell them.” Arin was nervous to even leave the room, afraid that after a weekend of closed doors and suspicious noises, people would know something had changed. He hadn’t slept in his own bed for three days. Dan kept him in the bottom bunk, trapping him there with his hands and his lips. And neither of them had spoken to their friends in that time either. After one very brief text to Alicen, Dan had turned his phone off completely, and Arin did the same after a message to Barry. Now Dan was nagging at him to go back to 537, and Arin was too nervous to face someone his roommate (boyfriend? He wasn’t sure at this point) used to fuck.

“And I do.” Dan swung the door open after running a hand through his untamable hair. “They’re going to find out sooner or later, and I’d rather it be from me. No doubt they’re already starting to wonder.” He grabbed Arin’s hand and pulled him out into the hallway, letting the door click shut behind them.

“But why do I have to come with you?” he whined as Dan took the stairs two at a time, emerging on the top floor somewhere in the 540s. Arin could feel his pulse hammering in his throat, but he didn’t want to tell him he was afraid of a skinny girl less than five feet tall (though he had no doubt she was physically stronger than all his friends combined).

Dan sighed as they halted outside 537. “I’m not actually sure how she’s going to take this, and she might tone down her reaction a bit if you’re there.”

“Is she even here?” he asked, looking doubtfully at Brian’s door. Dan sighed again, which Arin took as an _I don’t know_ , and leaned forward to knock.

For a moment there was nothing. No noise, no response. Maybe neither of them were there, Arin thought, or they were asleep and didn’t hear the knock, or just flat out refused to answer since it was ten-thirty on a Sunday. But a minute later he heard a lock click and the door creaked again. In front of him stood Aly, small and bleary-eyed, wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt and her hair piled messily on top of her head. Arin reached out and his fingers found Dan’s, clutching them nervously.

She looked at them blankly for a moment, blinking sleep out of her eyes, before her gaze fell to their entwined hands and it was very obvious that she knew. The grin overtook her face quickly and she darted back inside, gesturing for them to follow. When they stepped into the room proper, Brian was sitting up in bed, peeling a breathing strip off his nose, and she’d wedged herself into the space between him and the wall, looking immensely pleased with herself.

“You owe me money,” she proclaimed, nodding towards them. “I said within the week. Brian thought otherwise.” Arin hated the way his mouth flopped open like a dead fish at her words. Brian looked at their hands with critical eyes, the exact opposite of Alicen’s unbridled glee.

“Goddammit, couldn’t you two have waited five more days?” His reaction, while somewhat frustrating, lifted a weight off Arin’s chest. If that was all they were going to comment on, if they weren’t going to press for details like he assumed Aly would’ve, then maybe he could handle this. Things didn’t have to change, least of all his rooming situation. Like he’d hoped, things had worked themselves out.

And, oddly enough, even though they were sleeping right next to each other now, his snoring hadn’t woken Arin up in three days.

“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Dan asked, his voice quiet in comparison to Aly and Brian arguing over how much money he actually owed her. He squeezed his fingers and Arin was flooded with sudden warmth.

“I suppose not,” he admitted, smiling at him. “But now comes the really hard part.”

“And what would that be?”

He imagined standing awkwardly in the suite’s common space, all of their eyes on the lanky man bound to him through linked fingers.

“Telling _my_ friends.”

**Author's Note:**

> *casually drops a promotion for my other fics here*
> 
> I also take prompts on tumblr! You can submit to either my writing blog or my personal. Turnaround time might be long, though, since I'm pretty busy at the moment.


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